"John D Salt" wrote in message
news:...
David Garvin wrote in
news:3BED2194.BE6941DF@nbnet.nb.ca:
> Good day
> I was looking on the net for ANYTHING in reference to
> the game series > "Assault" from the old Game Designer's Workshop.
>I found squat. Well, to be fair, next to squat.
[Snips]
I can't recall ever seeing anything written about the "Assault!" series
apart from the intial reviews in S&T.
I bought "Assault" with a great sense of anticipation -- a game on a
favourite subject by Frank Chadwick, a favourite designer -- and was
bitterly disappointed in it. I think I was all the more disappointed
because it was not clearly a bad game.
It seemed to have had more research done on weapon performance than most
tactical games. The counters were lovely, although the scale chosen
seemed very odd in that one strength-reduction level seemed to represent
one-and-a-half tanks for the Sovs.
The Command Points system offered the chance of simulating command
control in a way that seemed initially as if it was going to be better
than anything else offered to date.
Having tried a few games solitaire and against an opponent, though, it
seemed to me that the command point system didn't really "gel". The rate
at which points were accumulated essentially meant that ther Americans
could maneouvre, and the Russians couldn't. Not that it mattered, as the
result of Russian maneouvre was always to be shot to pieces by M-1 fire
before achieving anything (probably realistic, but not a satisfactory
kind of game). It also seemed that there was little point attempting to
achieve combined-arms effects; infantry died shortly after being
spotted, and artillery was pointless except to eliminate the hapless
infanteers, who could not maneouvre dismounted in the time allowed for a
game. Smoke would doubtless have helped if there had been enough and if
the all-singing, all- dancing M-1s didn't have TIs.
Either you enjoy watching hordes of Red counters being converted to junk
by M-1s (actually an idea not without considerable appeal) or you have
discovered some way of getting more out of the game than we did. I'd be
interested to know why your games go differently. I'd be fascinated to
know how you can rig things for the Reds to win, too!
All the best,
John.
"Scott D. Orr" wrote in message
news:<9mj0vt49jf6i48uc15vkrp4r63dimqiafs@4ax.com>...
>On Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:47:15 GMT, John D Salt
> wrote:
> >David Garvin wrote in
> It seemed to have had more research done on weapon performance than
> most tactical games. The counters were lovely, although the scale
> chosen seemed very odd in that one strength-reduction level >eemed to
> represent one-and-a-half tanks for the Sovs.
The scale problem did bother me, as it gave the Soviets an unfair
advantage.
> The Command Points system offered the chance of simulating command
> control in a way that seemed initially as if it was going to be better
> than anything else offered to date.
>
> Having tried a few games solitaire and against an opponent, though, it
> seemed to me that the command point system didn't really "gel". The
> rate at which points were accumulated essentially meant that ther
> Americans could maneouvre, and the Russians couldn't. Not that it
> mattered, as the result of Russian maneouvre was always to be shot to
> pieces by M-1 fire before achieving anything (probably realistic, but
> not a satisfactory kind of game). It also seemed that there was
> little point attempting to achieve combined-arms effects; infantry
> died shortly after being spotted, and artillery was pointless except to
> eliminate the hapless infanteers, who could not maneouvre dismounted in
> the time allowed for a game. Smoke would doubtless have helped if there
> had been enough and if the all-singing, all-dancing M-1s didn't have TIs.
I didn't find any of this to be true. In particular, infantry is very
useful in close terrain, but you have to be patient in maneuvring
infantry into position. Infantry's big advantage over tanks, as
always, is that it's less vulnerable, especialy at close range.
As for combined arms, if you had tanks and infantry defending the same
line, the tanks could prevent the infantry from being beat up by
vehicles, and the infantry could prevent enemy infantry from sneaking
in to kill the tanks at close range. Artillery was also very
usefl--it was the one way to kill infantry without risking your tanks.
The U.S. ICM-DP was also somewhatuseful against tanks (the CLGP rounds
were _very_ useful, but that program was cancelled after Assault came
out :).
I never found that the Soviets had no chance--the Soviets were
perfectly viable as long as you thought like a Soviet, using your
numbers to yoru davntage, being wiling ot use road march or battle
drill where you had to. The U.S.'s small numbers always made the
American forces very brittle.
Scott Orr